


I’ll take a bruise (I know you're worth it)

by Mellaithwen



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Gen, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Bucky Barnes, What-If, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3576087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellaithwen/pseuds/Mellaithwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <b>AU set during Age of Ultron</b>
</p><p>
  <i>Bucky watches in horror as three Ultron robots get the jump on Steve, swiping him across the chest and sending him flying. The Captain’s back collides with the side of a building, hard, and he falls to the ground with an awful crack. His body spasms once before going painfully still.</i>
</p><p>Bucky sees that Steve could do with some help in the fight against the homicidal robots, and decides to do just that...</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’ll take a bruise (I know you're worth it)

**Author's Note:**

> The only spoilers here are that at some point in the movie, the Avengers will fight a bunch of creepy looking Ultron robots. And if you’ve avoided that spoiler, well, I salute you.
> 
> Everything else is me making stuff up. So. Yeah. Also the title is from Biffy Clyro.
> 
> I just really want to see Bucky in Age of Ultron, you guys...

Bucky watches in horror as three Ultron robots get the jump on Steve, swiping him across the chest and sending him flying. The Captain’s back collides with the side of a building, hard, and he falls to the ground with an awful crack. His body spasms once before going painfully still.

 

"No!" Bucky yells before jumping over the edge of the roof he’s been observing from through his sniper scope. He lands on a balcony's edge before propelling down to another and another and another. He swings onto a ledge with such force that his knees break the window’s glass. 

 

Someone screams. He doesn’t know who.

 

When he finally hits the ground it's with a jarring thud that has pain shooting up his shins, leaving a burning behind that sits behind his knees. 

 

He ignores it. He has other things to worry about.

 

He launches himself at the first mechanical enemy that comes forward, sparks flying from someone else's attack. Maybe it was Steve's shield. Or that other one’s hammer. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t care. He kicks out, knocking the thing in its middle—propelling it backwards into another robot, their heads hanging loose, their red eyes flickering once, twice, before going dark.

 

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a blue blur take out more of the slinking machines, and a red blast stops another group from advancing forward. He makes his way through the crowd of menacing robots with a single-minded ferocity that he hasn’t had the chance to use since taking out the last Hydra base a few miles south of where they are now.

 

He doesn’t see the crawling mess of a robot advancing from his feet until he feels something sharp slide between his ribs unexpectedly and he gasps. He looks down at the shard of metal, and swallows back the bile in his throat when he sees that it’s not a shard at all, but rather a robot’s wrist—sharpened at the loss of its hand. He curls his left fist, and brings it down hard on the side of the robots head, taking it clean off. He hisses when the metal in his midsection is jarred, but with a sharp yell, he pulls it out, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. 

 

By the time he gets to Steve, the front of his dark shirt is stained red and Romanov is already by the Captain’s side shooting any robots that try to come close. If she looks surprised to see The Winter Soldier, she doesn't show it.

 

Steve still hasn't moved and Bucky, still trying to catch his breath—blood flowing freely from his wound—wants nothing more than to grab Steve and run. His memory is like swiss cheese, but he remembers this. He remembers death, and horror and madness. And he remembers Steve with a kind of colour and clarity that can’t be forged, and he can’t lose him again, he won’t. 

 

So he grabs the shield in one hand and helps Natasha pull Steve’s body out of harms way with the other. They crouch behind a burnt-out bus, and the smell of burning rubber fills their nostrils. Looking around at the bombed out buildings and robotic creatures crawling towards them, like insects in their hoards, Bucky wonders if this is the end of the world. 

 

"Stay with him!" He shouts over to Natasha, when a metal hand reaches out and grabs him on his right flank. Bucky uses the shield and throws it down to sever the hand first and then, thrusting the shield upwards, he knocks the robot back into a crowd of its brothers and sisters.

 

He hears the crackle of electricity and when he turns around he sees Natasha electrocuting two of the Ultron figures until their mechanics are shorting out and they're slumping to the ground.

 

Another robot tackles Bucky to the floor. The sudden agony jars him, and he swallows back a scream. The robot takes advantage of the distraction and it slams Bucky’s head into the concrete. His ears are ringing but despite it all he manages to get the upper hand, quite literally, and plunges his metal fist into the thing’s chest until once more its red eyes flicker before switching off completely.

 

He tries to get to his feet, but he stumbles, and the world lurches beneath him. In a daze, he reaches a hand to his head, and feels the wet clump of hair at the base of his skull. When he brings his right hand back down, it’s covered in red. _Not good_.

 

He moves to jump back into the fray when one of the robots grabs his ankle and squeezes. He screams when he feels the bones shift and break, and he smashes the shield down, severing the head in another shower of sparks.

 

"Give me the shield!" Natasha yells, as Bucky hands it over and rushes backwards to swap places with the Black Widow just as Steve begins to stir.

 

“What…?"

 

"Stay down!" Bucky growls, but his touch is gentle when he pushes Steve back so that he stays leaning against the bus for support.

 

There's an explosion to their left as a nearby jet takes potshots at any robots grouped together, and Bucky throws his body over Steve's until he’s sure that it's just the black acrid smoke that's an issue.

 

By the time Bucky’s sitting back on his elbows, Steve’s vision has cleared and he can see the blood on Bucky’s front, and pooled in his collar. It bypasses any initial shock at seeing his long-lost best friend for the first time in over a year.

 

"You're hurt!"

 

The glare Bucky sends his way has him cower for a moment, and that’s when Bucky leans forward and takes hold of Steve’s chin, turning his head to the light to see how his pupils react.

 

One dilates, the other does not.

 

"You have a concussion." He states plainly before giving Steve’s body the once-over. "Your ribs are broken from the fall, you’re bleeding—”

 

" _You're_ bleeding, a _lot_ ,” Steve retorts, being able to see plain as day the way that Bucky’s favouring his left side, even while sitting, and his skin is about four shades too pale. When he grins, there’s blood on his teeth. “And jeez, Buck, your _ankle_ …”

 

They both look down at Barnes’ foot and wince at the unnatural angle it’s turned to, visible even through the combat boot. 

 

"Okay we can play this game all day.” Bucky concedes, sounding more like the man Steve remembers.

 

“—Or we can jump back in.” Steve interrupts. “Have each other's backs? Like the old days?” His voice is tentative, but god he looks so hopeful. 

 

Bucky wonders if this is a test.

 

“Steve…” The Captain’s face lights up to hear his name on his friend’s lips. If this is a test, then Barnes has passed with flying colours.“I’ll need to reset the bone.” He says matter-of-factly, and Steve nods, telegraphing his movements as he carefully reaches for the foot to hold, and with a nod from Barnes he twists until he feels the bones shift.

 

Bucky doesn’t scream, but he turns his head and throws up instead, until all he can taste is the burn of stomach acid in the back of his throat.

 

“So whaddya say?” Steve asks, when Bucky’s heaves have ended and he’s using the wall to ease himself upright. “You following me?” He doesn’t say _into the jaws of death_ , but Bucky hears it anyway.

 

“Come on, two’s better than one, right?”

 

In the distance Natasha has used a broken pile of mechanical limbs to climb higher and jump onto the back of another robot, with Steve’s shield held aloft. Hawkeye is using his bow to shoot explosive arrows into the crowd of Ultron’s, and using the edge of its upper limb to knock out the few robots that actually get close to him. The Hulk is smashing his way out from under a separate hoard of mechanical creatures with his green fists, while Thor is doing much of the same with his hammer, and above them, Iron Man is firing blasts from his repulser’s over and over again until his adversaries stay down.

 

Bucky looks down at Steve. They haven’t got anything on them to stop the bleeding on either of their wounds, but they're both banking on each other’s dose of the super serum to keep them upright for a little while longer. Bruised and battered, they’ve certainly fought with less on their side. Hell, they’ve fought _each other_ with less, not that they’re eager to revisit that memory any time soon.

 

“You're a goddamn idiot.” Bucky mutters finally, reaching out his right hand to help pull Steve to his feet. The Captain sways and leans against Bucky—the added weight on his shattered ankle has his metal fist crumbling the brick wall beneath his palm but he doesn’t say anything.

 

“Ready?” Captain America asks him, with a shit-eating grin, a nasty concussion and way too much energy for someone who—up until a few moments ago—had been knocked unconscious.

 

Bucky hands him one of own guns, since Steve’s weapon-of-choice is currently in Natasha’s hands.

 

“Just shut up and shoot,” Bucky says, with a long-suffering sigh. “And try not to get yourself killed.”

 

“Yes _sir_!”

 

"Punk." Bucky mutters, and for a moment, he thinks , _I’m gonna regret this_ , but he goes ahead and follows Steve anyway.

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you thought in the comments! 
> 
> and hey, feel free to say hello on [tumblr](http://mellaithwen.tumblr.com/)


End file.
